Constant Vigilance
by Scooter12345
Summary: Aknowledgements inside . . . Henry Higgins has never been one to do things by the halves. Eliza notices something is wrong that morning and in that observation comes a time of vigil. . . a vigil she'd rather not have to keep. This is on hiatus until I get inspiration.
1. We're good people, we are

**Hi all. So I just finished reading Pygmalion and I loved it so while I was searching for stories I found I Shall Never Take Her Back, a lovely story by the so very kind Alydia Racham who said I could write a sequel. So I present to her, the sequel! :D**

He woke up that morning with a pounding head ache. He felt terrible. Eliza, who'd fallen asleep next to him groaned as he shifted. The day's events came flooding back to him like a wave. They'd kissed. If that wasn't enough to worsen a headache he didn't know what was. He nearly fell of the sofa; she did.

"What in the bloody hell is the meaning of throwing me off the sofa Henry!" She shouted as she stood up.

"I'm sorry Eliza, I just . . ." he flushed. She laughed lightly. The laugh that caused him to break the grammaphone track was now in his ears, live. It was not traveling through a gravely track on the grammaphone. This made him smile.

"Just as I said before, words to live by, we're good people, we are." She squeezed his hand tightly before leaving to the kitchen. He smiled as he watched her leave strands of blonde sleep tousled hair falling down her back from its normally tight braid.

He went to stand up. He felt slightly dizzy but he assumed it was from . . . well he didn't rightly know but he didn't really care either.

He walked over to the kitchen where Eliza sat talking with Mrs. Pearce. She beamed at him and let him take a seat next to her. He had coffee in front of him, and as he always remembered Eliza was delighted with tea. Her tea, he never forgot of course, had honey and three cubes, exactly, of sugar in it. He wouldn't dare tell her but he thought her tea must have tasted as sweet as she herself was.

He was zoning and she could see it. She looked at him perplexed for a little while before tapping his shoulder and startling him only slightly. His brown eyes remained rather unfocused.

Her eyes were always alert, it was something you picked up on the street. Her green eyes were ever fixated on him for a solid five minutes as she assessed him. He looked tired, more so than he had in the past few days. He seemed more tired as well.

_I would be too. If I hadn't slept in a bed for the amount of time he hasn't. _She thought to herself letting her hand fall on his. He barely noticed. She was worried; maybe they should just sleep this day. The three of them could just pull a day of rest.

He was usually so alert but he just couldn't focus. His chest felt tight when she placed her hand on his it dissipated for a moment but returned full force. He hurt. He didn't want her to see but with the way she looked at him he was certain she could see right into his insides.

"Professor?" Mrs. Pearce asked now gaining her attention.

"Henry?" Eliza asked as he started to attempt for deeper breaths that weren't to be had. "Are you alright Henry?" Eliza cupped his cheek with her hand and ran her fingers through his dark brown hair.

"Do you want me to go get the Colonel?" Mrs. Pearce asked Eliza.

"Would you?" she asked now turning back to Henry. "Henry look at me," she commanded. "Just keep looking at me Henry." She was kneeling on the floor now looking up at him.

"That's it just hold my gaze love. Shhh . . ." she whispered. She pressed the back of her hand to his forehead and winced. He was running a high fever.

"That's it Henry, keep looking at me. You look dreadful, love," she whispered in a sympathetic way.

Why hadn't anyone noticed before; why hadn't she? He'd looked terrible the first days she'd been back with him, pale as death, dark circles, living on the streets for most of her life she thought she would have seen those as a sign for high alarm.

She ran her fingers through his hair.

"Liza. . ." he slurred tiredly. "Liza . . ."

"Yes dear, I'm right here, I'm right here it's me. I'm not going anywhere, I'm right here."

"Keep talking?"

"Of course, shhh . . . of course, I'll never stop not if you don't want me to." She murmured nonsense to him rubbing his knee as he relaxed against the kitchen chair.

The Colonel came rushing down the stairs. He ran into the kitchen. He knelt by Eliza and lifted Henry from the chair and took him upstairs Eliza in tow. Pickering laid him on the bed; however, Eliza made him comfortable. She pulled the covers up to his chin; she then ran her fingers through his soft and sweaty hair reassuringly. He groaned a little in sleep.

"Shhhh love, 'Liza's here." She whispered as she tucked him in and lit a candle for her vigil, "'Liza's here."


	2. Keep Talking

"_Shhhh love, 'Liza's here." She whispered as she tucked him in and lit a candle for her vigil, "'Liza's here."_

She held his hand as he woke. His eyes remain unfocused and he looked uncomfortable.

"Do you feel any better Henry?" She asked him softly pushing back his hair gently.

"No," his voice was hoarse and soft. He started to cough harshly into his arm. She gently rubbed his back murmuring softly.

"Henry shhh . . . it's okay . . . it's going to be fine." She whispered. She helped him to sit back against the pillows. He was shaking pretty badly. He reached out to her and fingered her hair to insure he wasn't dreaming. He just felt so tired.

He was asleep in seconds, Eliza and the Colonel assumed it was the influenza. It'd been rapid that year, the cough and the fever seemed to fit. However, there was one thing Eliza was worried about, and that was the extreme fatigue and the shaking. Her mind then flipped back to his lack of sleep and his fever was rather high. She was solaced momentarily.

"Should it get worse we shall send Mrs. Pearce for a doctor." Pickering said to her.

Eliza nodded and gently took Higgins' hand in hers. She rubbed his palm with her thumb.

"Talk to him," Mrs. Pearce said to her, "It used to be the only way he'd sleep."

Eliza smiled, "Henry, I missed you. I wished sometimes that you would visit. If you wanted to hear me talk why didn't you come? Henry, I wondered about you sometimes. How you said that you liked to hear me speak. When I told you to listen to the grammaphone tracks and look at pictures, I didn't realize you would. So now, I promise, unless you ask me, I'll talk forever. I shant ever stop talking."

She could tell he was smiling. She was glad that her proper grammar made him smile. It was the least she could do for him.

She watched him sleep. He looked so peaceful were it not for the way his cheeks appeared as though slapped raw. His eyes held dark circles despite the sleep. He groaned wearily and rolled onto his side holding his stomach painfully.

"Henry, Henry love?" She asked softly. "Henry love what is it? What's the matter?"

She rushed around to the other side of the bed so she was facing him. The color from his face blanched further. She helped him sit up against the pillows.

"Shh . . . sweetheart you're alright." She grabbed a basin if he should be ill and helped him lie back in the pillows but still upright enough that he could be sick if needed. She climbed up at the foot of his bed and then sat next to him dabbing his face with a cool cloth.

"E-Eliza," he bit the inside of his cheek. He started to feel. . .weird he didn't know how to put it into words, it was just an odd feeling. He felt tired and hot. However, he felt cold too. He looked up at Eliza and his eyes betrayed him. She could see that this was hurting him badly. He couldn't focus on anything and his hands were shaking, his whole body was shaking with chills. His color blanched again as he was ill.

She had her arm around him within two seconds cooing to him speaking in a mix of Lisson Grove and proper speech. She didn't care as long as words were coming out.

"Shh . . . 'Fessor 'iggans. It's okay, it's alright luv. 'S alright 'Liza's 'ere love. 'Lisa's here." Her H's were dropped and then added and words were mispronounced only to be corrected in a later sentence.

He hated weakness and this was the worst weakness of all and here she was treating him as though this were the most normal thing in the world, to have tears running down one's face. Now, seeing that he was a professor of phonetics and not physiology he didn't know that his was just a triggered reaction. Eliza knew this simply by the number of times she'd seen others get ill around her.

She was helping him lie back now. He was flushed and still quite upset; she moved the basin and then took his hand.

"Lie back now and rest," she murmured. "Is it helping to be propped up?"

He nodded.

"Do you want anything?" She asked softly brushing some of the light brown hair filled with the smallest and softest flex of gray from his face.

"T-tea?" he said painfully before coughing harshly into his arm.

"Of course luv, shhh . . ." she hushed gently. "Shhh . . . is there anything else I can do?" She whispered.

He shook his head not really wanting to speak.

"Lie back then I can go get Mrs. Pearce for tea. Hush, my dear, and Eliza's right here dear, I'm right here." She said letting his hand go for only a few seconds before rubbing one of his legs reassuringly and leaving to go and find Mrs. Pearce and Pickering. He needed a doctor and he certainly wasn't going to let her leave. In the deepest corner of her heart she would admit she didn't want to.

**Chapter 2 finished. Please tell me if I'm OOC and **_**how**_** to fix it don't just flame and yell at me for OOCness. Tell me where it is and what I should do to fix it. All I have to say is, I have **_**a lot**_** of respect for people who write Sick fics. **


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